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A Week in the War: Afghanistan, June 2-8, 2010

Released on 2012-10-19 08:00 GMT

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A Week in the War: Afghanistan, June 2-8, 2010

June 8, 2010 | 2208 GMT
A Week in the War: Afghanistan, May 12-18
STRATFOR BOOK
* Afghanistan at the Crossroads: Insights on the Conflict
Related Links
* Obama's Plan and the Key Battleground
* Afghanistan: The Nature of the Insurgency
* Afghanistan: Understanding Reconciliation
* Afghanistan: Factional Fighting in Baghlan Province
Related Special Topic Page
* The War in Afghanistan

Peace Jirga

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's National Council for Peace,
Reconciliation and Reintegration met June 2-4 in Kabul. Despite a small
and ineffective Taliban attack against the jirga on the first day, the
council managed to accomplish the following:

* The forced resignations of Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and
National Directorate of Security chief Amrullah Saleh (who has
denied being sacked) over the failure to prevent the June 2 attack.
Both are significant figures who accompanied Karzai when he visited
Washington in May. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
characterized the resignations as an "internal matter for the
Afghans."
* A review of the status of detainees, with those held on insufficient
evidence to be released after completion of the review. A number of
Afghans also will be removed from U.S. and international black
lists.
* A clear consensus that negotiations must be held with the Taliban.

Much of this is about Karzai strengthening his negotiating position and
shaping perceptions among his allies and the Taliban. It was Karzai,
after all, who carefully and deliberately orchestrated the council
meeting. Part of his challenge remains maintaining coherency and unity -
and perceptions of both - within his own camp. Several key opposition
leaders boycotted the jirga completely.

But the other half of Karzai's challenge is perhaps even more daunting.
The United States appears to have gotten behind Karzai's reconciliation
efforts, or at least given him some room to maneuver publicly. U.S.
Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke
said June 6 that the United States supports the inclusion of the Taliban
in a future Afghan government so long as any former militants joining
the government break with al Qaeda, lay down their arms and agree to
accept Afghanistan's political system.

The Taliban

But while the intention to negotiate is on one side of the table (it is
indeed an essential component of the American strategy) - the Taliban
present a different problem entirely. They perceive 2009 to be their
most successful year to date and believe they are winning the war. They
are also acutely aware of the short timetable the U.S.-led International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is working on. Though the Taliban have
not been able to sustain high-profile (if tactically ineffective)
attacks against major targets like the ISAF airbases at Kandahar and
Bagram in the weeks since, and while the offensive in the south is
certainly not without its impact on Taliban logistics, they show little
sign of being pressured to come to the table and certainly not to
negotiate in any meaningful way.

[IMG]
(click here to enlarge image)

As the surge of U.S. and NATO troops into Afghanistan is completed this
summer, with troop levels to be maintained for about a year, Washington
and Kabul's position will never be stronger. But that position will
begin to erode in the coming years as the drawdown gets under way (or
perhaps even before it begins, if it becomes evident that little is
changing even at the height of the surge, indicating that the Taliban
can withstand the surge). The Canadians on June 8 reiterated their
longstanding intention to draw down in 2011 after years of holding the
line in the Taliban heartland of Helmand and Kandahar provinces, along
with the British, Danish and Dutch. These represent some of the
strongest allied commitments to Afghanistan, and the size and diversity
of NATO's contribution to the ISAF can be expected to drop significantly
in the latter half of 2011 and in 2012.

So it is clear to all involved that time is on the Taliban's side. Even
the Taliban realize that a return to the Afghanistan of the 1990s, when
they ruled the country completely, is not realistic. But they ultimately
seek to dominate the government in Kabul at the highest levels and
adjust the existing constitution to include more room for Islamic law
(something many Afghans support). To achieve these ends, the Taliban
have a strong incentive to delay any meaningful negotiations.

The American strategy is to divide the Taliban from the population in
their heartland in Helmand and Kandahar, to capture and kill their
hard-line commanders and fighters, to degrade the movement and to compel
them to sue for peace. But the success of this strategy is far from
assured. Progress thus far has been slow, and ISAF troops are already
spread thin across Helmand. Another large offensive, planned for the
Helmand districts of Sangin and Kajaki along the provincial border with
Kandahar, has also been announced, to be conducted concurrently with the
planned offensive in the city of Kandahar.

Economy of Force

Meanwhile, a $100 million expansion of U.S. special operations
facilities was revealed this week in the northern Afghan city of
Mazar-e-Sharif, where additional special operations forces will be sent
this summer. Both Mazar-e-Sharif, which will eventually see Afghan's
first rail link to the outside world, and a pocket of districts in
Konduz and Baghlan provinces are the focus of an American
economy-of-force effort that is largely a holding action while troops
are being massed in Helmand and Kandahar to the south (though even here,
in many places, forces are being spread thin).

Special operations forces are an essential component of
counterinsurgency warfare, and in the north they will likely be
dedicated to a variety of missions - not just capturing and killing
high-value Taliban targets but also improving the effectiveness of
Afghan security forces in the region. Though additional forces have also
been allocated to reinforce the effort in Baghlan and Kunduz, this
effort is intended not to overwhelm Taliban forces but to hold the line
and disrupt closer relations between the Taliban and the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union, Islamist factions
from Central Asia to the north.

Logistics

The New York Times ran a series this week on an Afghan security
contractor in Oruzgan province whom the ISAF pays to ensure route
security on the main road from Kandahar into the province, a key
logistical connection to the Ring Road. Enjoying millions of dollars per
month in fees and operating without licenses or contracts with the
Afghan government, such contractors can be far more powerful and capable
than the government (indeed, they reportedly poach some of the Afghan
security forces' more promising talent). According to The Times report,
such security firms pay the Taliban not to attack convoys in their
charge and occasionally to attack convoys in order to ensure that their
contracts will be renewed. An attempt by the Afghan government to ban
two such firms reportedly resulted in such a spike in Taliban attacks
that the ban had to be overturned and their contracts renewed.

While one investigative report does not necessarily indicate that the
problem is pervasive, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the top British
officer in the country's restive south, reportedly expressed concerns
about "legions" of such unregulated contractors (now-former Interior
Minister Atmar also said he opposed them). In addition to the problem of
ISAF money being funneled to the Taliban (and this is hardly the only
potential avenue for such a diversion of funds), unregulated security
contractors pose an alternative authority to the fledgling Afghan
government. (Some of these firms are run by relatives and associates of
senior Afghan officials, including Karzai himself, so in some cases they
can also be an extra-governmental tool of the regime.) Afghan officials
are already widely perceived as corrupt and incapable of effective
governance, while government security forces continue to struggle toward
greater operational maturity.

Yet these security forces are so ineffective, the report suggests, that
American special operations forces prefer to work with the private,
unregulated contractors in their employ. This may be a necessary
expedient at times, but it is one that almost certainly undermines
longer-term efforts to craft a political dynamic where the legitimate
use of force is shifted more and more exclusively to the Afghan
government. And as tens of thousands of Iraqi Sunnis in the Awakening
Councils have found, integration into the government is not a simple
process because it can have a significant effect on the balance of
political power. This is perhaps even more true in Afghanistan, where
warlordism has been such a dominant part of Afghan society for so long.

Ultimately, logistics remain a key challenge for the ISAF in
Afghanistan. A counterinsurgency is very manpower intensive, and ISAF
forces are already stretched thin. Indigenous private security
contractors help free up international troops for the main effort of the
campaign in the Afghan south. Of course, this comes at a price.
Expediency is essential in a campaign so constrained by time, but the
costs can be high in terms of establishing long-term civil authority.
The true scope and impact of the practice are difficult to gauge, but
they may become all too obvious in the years ahead.

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